Cleaner fuels for ships beneficial for public health

A new study published in Nature Communications Journal assessed public health impacts of low-sulphur fuels in global shipping, revealing that clean fuels will significantly reduce ship-related premature mortality and morbidity, but they will still account for approximately 250k deaths annually. Additional stringent regulations beyond 2020 standards may prove beneficial.

Using high-resolution emissions inventories, integrated atmospheric models, and health risk functions, the study assessed ship-related PM2.5 pollution impacts in 2020 with and without the use of low-sulphur fuels.

Lower sulphur fuels also reduce radiative cooling from ship aerosols by ~80%, equating to a ~3% increase in current estimates of total anthropogenic forcing. Therefore, stronger international shipping policies may need to achieve climate and health targets by jointly reducing greenhouse gases and air pollution.

More than 97% of the adult mortality benefits from ship emissions reductions will be in Asia (80%), Africa (12%), and Latin America and the Caribbean (5%). More than 98% of the childhood morbidity benefits from ship emissions reductions also occur in Asia (54%), Africa (33%), and Latin America and the Caribbean (12%). The different distributions are primarily due to the different distributions of adult and youth populations among nations.

Europe, North America, and Oceania combined will receive <3% and <2% of the mortality and morbidity benefits of the global sulphur standard, respectively. This is primarily due to existing legislation (with or without the global standards) in North America, the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the English Channel, and EU sea areas in general.

The study was initially published in Nature Communications Journal and conducted by the Atmospheric Composition Research, Finnish Meteorological Institute, the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, the Energy and Environmental Research Associates, LLC, Pittsford, and the University of Delaware, 305 Robinson Hall, Newark.